`WE SERVED. WE DESERVE.'; FILIPINO VETERANS CONTINUE VIGIL.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

Tuesday, like every day since June 14, was Veterans Day at MacArthur Park.

Since Flag Day, Filipino World War II veterans have kept a round-the-clock vigil at ``Equity Village,'' a small makeshift tent surrounding a statue of their one-time commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, in a campaign for the same benefits other WWII veterans receive.

About 50 of the protesting veterans and their families spent the national holiday cleaning up the park that in some ways has become their home away from home for the past 150 days.

``Being U.S. veterans we are entitled to the same benefits,'' said Francisco Ladia, a 71-year-old North Hollywood resident, who joined an Army engineering battalion of the U.S. armed forces in the Philippines in 1943.

``We intend to stay here until the Equity Bill is passed by the U.S. government, and the American government gives us the equality and justice we have long waited for. We served. We deserve.''

Ladia was one of 200,000 citizens of the Philippines who fought in the war alongside regular U.S. troops. Before 1946, the Philippines was a U.S. territory. President Roosevelt, in a 1941 executive order, called upon them to serve in the U.S. armed forces.

``We were the first American soldiers to fight the war in the Pacific,'' said veteran Nicasio Martin, also of North Hollywood. ``We delayed the Japanese advance toward Australia. That delay upset their timetable. Because of this historic effort the Japanese were stopped cold for six months.''

After the war, in 1946, Congress decided it would not supply veterans benefits to the Filipinos who fought in the war. The Recision Act of 1946 excluded the Filipino veterans from the benefits reaped by others under the terms of the G.I. Bill of Rights.

Unlike other veterans, they have never received a pension, disability payments or health care. The only benefits that were paid went to families of Filipino soldiers who died, people disabled in the war and prisoners of war, said Joel Bander, a lawyer working with the veterans.

The issue has come to the forefront again because so many Filipino veterans of World War II immigrated to the United States in the early 1990s and were naturalized under the Immigration Reform Act. Of the estimated 70,000 surviving Filipino veterans, about 24,600 are now U.S. citizens, Martin said.

The Equity Village Foundation is lobbying not just for the Filipino veterans who are now U.S. citizens, but also for Filipino veterans who still live in the Philippines, Martin said.

U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, D-Chula Vista, has co-written the Filipino Veterans Equity Act, which would provide veterans making less than $11,000 a year a veterans pension. If passed, the bill would call for distributing $750 million a year to Filipino veterans living in the United States and the Philippines. Bander said the group is hoping the bill will pass in the next congressional session.

But until that happens the veterans will keep up their round-the-clock presence in MacArthur Park, Ladia said.

The protest began on Flag Day when members held hunger strikes and chained themselves to the statue of MacArthur.

On Veterans Day they decided to join with the police officers at a substation in the park and embark on a cleanup effort.

``We wanted to do something different, something positive on this, our, day - Veterans Day,'' Ladia said. ``Also we wanted to thank Mayor (Richard) Riordan and the city of Los Angeles for allowing us to stay at Equity Village.''

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) Fernando Benito, a Filipino World War II veteran, participates in a prayer session Tuesday at ``Equity Village'' in MacArthur Park.

Terri Thuente/Daily News

(2 -- color) Robert Udell of Reseda salutes during ceremony Tuesday at Forest Lawn. Veterans Day services were held throughtout the Southland.